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Issues Facing Missions Today: 14 ‘We Have Stopped Supporting Your
Ministry’
1 December, AD 51
Dear Paul, Silas, and Timothy,
Greetings from Antioch. We trust you are well and that your ministry
in Corinth is also continuing well. Our mission committee
met last week to discuss your work, and we have decided to discontinue the
annual support that we have been sending for your ministry. You are probably wondering what led us to
this decision, and so here are ten of our primary concerns.
First, of the three of you, only Paul was
originally sent out from this church.
Silas is from Jerusalem, and Timothy is from Lystra. Our policy is to support missionaries who
come from Antioch. Also, our policy is
to support our missionaries at 5% of their total support needs, and we expect
them to find the rest of their support from other churches. We, however, will not support missionaries
who do not come from…

Why Foreign Missions? 20n Paul's
Mission or Affliction Catalogues: The Content of the Gospel and the Character
of Mission[1] Paul characterises his mission several times
in 'mission catalogues': 1 Cor. 4.9-13; 2 Cor. 4.8f; 6.3-10; 11.23-33; 12.10;
Rom. 8.35; Phl. 4.11-13; 2 Tim. 3.10-11.
These passages have several things in common and, in particular, they
describe the hardships that he faces because of his mission work. So, from these texts we can discover
something of Paul's view of suffering and self-denial, particularly as it
relates to Christian mission. While
parallels may be found in other literature of the time both rhetorically and in
substance, these passages offer a different view of suffering. For Paul, suffering is negative, and yet in
the apostle's weaknesses the positive side of the situation emerges, for God's
strength is manifest through them.[2] And such a theology accounts for the earnest
efforts that characterize Paul's mission; the…